Tag Archive | "National Automobile Dealers Association"

TYSONS, Va. — Michael J. Stanton Jr. has returned to the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) as senior vice president and chief operating officer, the trade group announced today.

Stanton will work across the organization on strategic and operational issues and the development of new business opportunities. He will oversee the information technology and economics and data analytics departments, as well as NADA’s affinity programs.

“I am excited to be back at NADA and have the opportunity to enhance existing relationships and develop new ones to support franchised new-car and -truck dealerships and our industry,” Stanton said.

Prior to rejoining the NADA, Stanton served as vice president and general manager of J.D. Power’s Vehicle Valuation Practice. Formerly known as the NADA Used Car Guide, the service was acquired by J.D. Power in 2015.

Before the acquisition, Stanton served as vice president and COO of the NADA Used Car Guide. He also served as the association’s executive director of industry affairs. Before that, he was the national sales manager for the NADA Used Car Guide.

Prior to joining the NADA, Stanton worked for two auto manufacturers, primarily assisting dealers with their sales and service operations. He received a bachelor’s degree in political science from James Madison University and earned a master’s degree in business administration from Virginia Tech. Stanton currently resides in Washington, D.C., with his family.

“Mike is a proven NADA leader who will add bench strength to our team,” said NADA President and CEO Peter Welch. “He has worked many years gaining vast experience and building key relationships and partnerships throughout the automobile industry and beyond.”

NEW ORLEANS (Jan. 26, 2017) – The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Festivities for the centennial begin at the 2017 NADA Convention and Expo in New Orleans starting on Thursday, January 26.

“It’s not every day that a national trade association reaches its 100-year anniversary, yet NADA is still as strong and relevant as the day it was founded,” said 2016 NADA Chairman Jeff Carlson.

“NADA’s 100th mission for 100 years has been to represent local dealerships and our customers in Washington, D.C., with a goal of keeping personal transportation affordable for everyone,” added Carlson, president of Glenwood Springs Ford and Glenwood Springs Subaru in Glenwood Springs, Colo., and co-owner of Summit Ford in Silverthorne, Colo. “It’s an honor to serve such a respected group.”

For the past 15 years, more than 90 percent of all new-car and -truck dealerships in the United States have been NADA members. Few, if any, other associations have sustained those membership numbers, Carlson added.

Founded in 1917, NADA formed when a group of local dealers set out to fight a new effort by Congress to levy a luxury tax on new automobiles. Thirty dealers from state and local associations traveled to Washington, D.C., and set up base at the Willard Hotel.

By convincing Congress that cars were not luxury items as they were classified, but instead were vital to the economy, the group prevented total factory conversion to wartime work and succeeded in reducing a proposed 5 percent luxury tax to 3 percent.

The incident was the first of many chapters where local dealerships fought to keep new vehicles affordable for their customers.

“Local dealers argued in 1917 that cars are a necessity of American life, not a luxury item,” said 2017 NADA Chairman Mark Scarpelli, whose term as chairman coincides with the beginning of a new White House administration and Congress in the nation’s capital. “NADA was formed to make sure that entrepreneurs could open local dealerships and provide affordable cars and transportation to farmers, factory workers and people from all walks of life.”

Scarpelli, president of Raymond Chevrolet and Raymond Kia in Antioch and co-owner of Ray Chevrolet and Ray Chrysler-Jeep-Dodge-Ram in Fox Lake, Ill., officially becomes chairman of NADA during the 2017 NADA convention on Saturday, January 28.

Scarpelli’s top priorities for 2017 include advocating on legislative and regulatory issues in Washington, D.C., promoting the consumer benefits of local dealerships, meeting with auto manufacturer executives, and getting the next generation of dealers involved in their trade associations and on Capitol Hill.

“We’re advocating for clarity with the new administration and Congress, whether it’s related to auto financing, new tax proposals, vehicle recall policy or fuel economy rules,” Scarpelli said. “We’re concerned about vehicle affordability for consumers, period. We have to make sure we keep our customers top of mind when dealing with all of these issues.”

NADA’s public policy initiatives are aimed at protecting consumers from overreaching federal regulations and unintended consequences.

NADA’s centennial festivities begin at the 2017 NADA convention, which runs from Jan. 26-29 in New Orleans. More than 23,000 dealers and auto industry professionals are expected to attend over the four-day event. NADA kicks off yearlong commemorative events beginning with NADA100 Carnival in New Orleans on Thursday, January 26.

Automotive News, on January 23, published an entire issue dedicated to NADA’s 100th Anniversary, featuring interviews with many of the most prominent figures in the automotive industry. Click here for the special edition.

In addition to the convention, NADA has produced a NADA100 documentary and commemorative issue of its Convention Magazine, which was completely redesigned for the special occasion and includes a timeline of NADA, dealer and other auto-industry milestones. The documentary, magazine and other information highlighting the association over the years are available at nada.org/nada100. NADA also will be celebrating its 100th anniversary throughout the year with digital media initiatives, in speeches and at other industry events.

NEW ORLEANS – To show its long-time support for the New Orleans community ahead of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) Convention and Expo this week, NADA Foundation donated $50,000 to the Emeril Lagasse Foundation, which supports Café Reconcile.

“My wife Alden and I are delighted that NADA has chosen the Emeril Lagasse Foundation as a grant recipient in conjunction with their convention. This generous philanthropic gift will help us positively impact the lives of more children,” said Chef Emeril Lagasse, chairman and founder of the Emeril Lagasse Foundation. “Thank you for bringing your convention to New Orleans and for supporting the Emeril Lagasse Foundation.”

The NADA Foundation, since its inception in 1975, has a long history of providing financial support to New Orleans and surrounding communities from hurricane and flood relief efforts, renovating the athletic fields at Lusher Charter School, supporting Second Harvest Food Bank to numerous CPR donations to local organizations.

“The NADA Foundation through amazing contributions from our dealer network has supported dealership families, military families and children in need from natural disasters and times of emergency, like hurricanes Katrina and Rita and most recently, the flooding in Baton Rouge,” said Annette Sykora, chairman of the NADA Foundation. “Through it all, NADA has been there to help.”

The Emeril Lagasse Foundation, founded in 2002, supports organizations that create opportunities to inspire and mentor youth through culinary, nutrition and arts education with a focus on life skills development.

“NADA’s generous gift will help us continue to provide the financial resources to those organizations that rely on our support and to expand our reach to more youths across the nation,” said Brian Kish, president of the Emeril Lagasse Foundation.

New Orleans has hosted the NADA convention 12 times since 1973. The four-day event runs from Jan. 26 to 29, 2017, at the Morial Convention Center. More than 23,000 new-car dealers and their managers, automotive industry professionals and exhibitor staff are expected to attend.

“The NADA convention has a positive impact on our local economy and their philanthropic spirit leaves a lasting legacy that will benefit all of us for years to come,” Kish added. “We are honored to be the recipient of their support this year. We will ensure the gift is invested wisely in the youth of our communities.”

PALO ALTO — In 2017, the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) celebrates 100 years serving franchised automobile dealers. Next year also marks the centennial of the first evidence of vehicle reconditioning, according to a provider of reconditioning workflow time-to-market software solutions.

Rapid Recon issued a press release today saluting the NADA for 100 years of faithful service to the automobile industry. It also offered a brief look into the history of the industy, the association and the reconditioning.

The NADA story began in 1917 when 30 auto dealers traveled to the nation’s capital to convince Congress not to impose a luxury tax on the automobile. They successfully argued that the automobile is a necessity of American life, not a luxury. From that experience, the NADA was born.

“We’re excited to be an exhibitor at NADA in New Orleans for its 100th anniversary, a proud organization for a great industry,” said Dennis McGinn, founder and CEO of Rapid Recon. “It is remarkable how many people today make their living working in and supporting the American automobile dealership, nearly five million men and women.”

The company will be exhibiting in Booth No. 5417 at the NADA Convention & Expo, which will be held at the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on Jan. 26-29.

As for recon, there was no need for reconditioning at first, at least not as it exists today. What trade-ins there were in the industry’s beginning were animal-drawn wagons and similar conveyances, according to information collected by Rapid Recon. Undoubtedly, some of America’s first automobile dealers spiffed up those vehicles, replacing a wooden wheel or two, repairing a broken seat or strengthening a weak axle spring to give a worn-out buggy “like-new” appeal for buyers.

By the time the NADA was founded in 1917, the sufficiency of units in operation meant a growing opportunity for used-vehicle sales. According to motor vehicle registrations in 1917, as compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads, nearly five million cars and trucks were registered. While difficult to calculate how many of the 7,653 million vehicles registered from 1914 until then would have still be in operation, it’s likely many of them flowed back to dealers as trades.

By late 1916, creative rebuilders were putting old cars, now “reconditioned,” back on the road.

Motor Age magazines from the 1920s discuss reconditioning in he role of used-car sales success. The May 11, 1922, edition presented two ideas: “The used-car company will sell its car at cost, plus reconditioning, plus sales expense, plus a normal profit.” In a separate article, “The National Used Car Company Plan,” the publication floated the idea of centralized used-car operations and reconditioning by zone — the thought then being used-car sales were a distraction to new-car salespeople.

Most reconditioning in those early days was cosmetic, though there was a growing recognition of the need to make those cars both safe and somewhat “reliable,” according to Rapid Recon’s research. During the Great Depression, reconditioned vehicles supplemented dealers’ new-car opportunities.

The beginning of World War II is recognized as the birth of intentional reconditioning, which morphed into the operation that’s now integral to new-car dealership used-car departments. With new-car manufacturing curtailed by the U.S. government from 1942 to late 1945, new-car supply was virtually nonexistent. Used cars were in demand, and dealers survived by sourcing and refurbishing those vehicles. Service, parts, tires and other related opportunities became dealers’ bread-and-butter, not unlike today.

Throughout the ‘50s and ‘60s, most dealers viewed reconditioning as a necessary evil and as a means of disposing used cars taken in trade during that era of the two-to-three-year trade cycle.

Today, reconditioning continues as a discipline for cosmetically and mechanically upgrading used vehicles so they’re safer and more reliable and can command higher sales grosses. Recognizing the faster they can get used cars from acquisition to the front line to sell them, many dealers today are adopting time-to-market workflow software to reduce this cycle to three to five days, not the average and costly eight to 15 or so days, McGinn noted.

This need has expanded considerably in recent years with the flow of off-lease vehicles, which OEMs ask their dealers to market as pre-owned certified models. Certified pre-owned worked its way into the automotive vocabulary when Lexus launched the first CPO program in November 1993. Toyota’s program started in 1996. Most manufacturers and their dealers today offer certified pre-owned vehicles to buyers.

A Dealer’s Recall

One expert industry veteran, still in the business today, spent his earlier career working for Garber Buick in Saginaw, Mich., which was Buick’s first store. Its owner Gary Garber was one of General Motors’ first 13 distributors. Working in that historic environment gave this industry veteran opportunity to review and study old dealership and industry records, from which he shared recently, including perspectives on attitudes about vehicle reconditioning through the years and how over time recon practices changed.

“In the ‘50s and ‘60s, recon was patching vehicles up — making them look good cosmetically, but just good enough to pass off to somebody else and make some money on them,” he recalled.

It was not until the late ‘70s and early ‘80s that dealers began to take a serious interest in reconditioning used cars. That work, however, was predominately sublet. It was the advice of industry consultants, Garber said, that began to convince dealers they needed to bring reconditioning into their own operations to keep that profit internally.

About this time too, he added, dealers, seeing the growth in third-party service contract sales, formed their own off-shore service contract companies to retain those profits themselves. As service contract professionalism grew, those companies’ management teams, in order protect their risks, pushed for higher reconditioning standards. Better reconditioned vehicles, in turn, helped attract more used-car buyers, making used-car departments integral to dealership profitability.

As we move toward a new decade, industry changes will continue to keep manufacturers, dealers, and solution providers watchful. The huge volume of vehicle open safety recalls in recent years is one concern. Fortunately, use of recall management software woven into the reconditioning process helps identify affected models so their recall issues can be addressed before those vehicles reach the frontline and the consumer, whenever the recall is announced in the recon cycle.

TYSONS, Va. — The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) announced that it has found its new senior vice president of dealership operations: Peter L. Fong.

Fong expressed that one of his key areas of interest will be to accelerate the process of moving dealerships toward the “0online to in-store” car-buying experience for consumers.

“I’m absolutely thrilled to be returning to the automotive industry, particularly now given the ongoing digital transformation of both the automotive manufacturing and retail sectors,” Fong said. “My primary goal will be driving value-added changes in all areas of dealership operations, so that the next generation of products and services provided by the NADA to dealers and their employees is second-to-none.”

Before joining the NADA, Fong was the executive vice president and CMO at The Judge Group, a firm specializing in technology consulting, staffing solutions, and corporate training. He has also held multiple executive-level sales, marketing, and brand management positions at Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC. He brings a cumulative 20 years of industry experience.

“Peter brings tremendous understanding and a wealth of hands-on experience to the NADA,” said NADA President Peter Welch. “With Peter at the helm of Dealership Operations, the NADA will be able to continue providing our member dealers and their employees with innovative educational and training programs designed to meet the challenges of automotive retailing both now and well into the future.”

LAS VEGAS — The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) has announced a partnership with the MyCarDoesWhat campaign — a research-driven campaign created by the National Safety Council and University of Iowa to help raise awareness of new vehicle safety features designed to prevent crashes and reduce deaths and injuries.

Research from the University of Iowa shows that most consumers are unsure about how potentially life-saving vehicle safety features work. It also shows that consumers are unlikely to fully and properly utilize the features if they are not introduced to them within the first 90 days of vehicle ownership.

“While our cars are getting safer, we might not be taking advantage of the new safety features on our cars as much as we can be,” said NADA President Peter Welch. “A blind spot monitoring system can’t help you if you don’t have it turned on, and automatic emergency braking isn’t going to keep you safe if you think it’s a substitute for being an active, alert driver.

“As the main touch point for consumers considering new car purchases, dealers have a very natural role to play here,” he added. “And by working together, hopefully we can close the consumer education gap, and achieve our shared goal of getting drivers to feel comfortable and confident with all their vehicles have to offer on the safety front.”

The MyCarDoesWhat campaign was created to educate consumers about how to best interact with safety features in order to promote safer driving experiences. The campaign uses multi-media educational tools, public service announcements, consumer-friendly videos and graphics, brochures, fact sheets, a game app and social media platform to educate drivers, according to the association.

“If motor vehicle crashes were a disease, vehicle safety technologies could be the cure,” said Deborah A.P. Hersman, president and CEO of the National Safety Council. “Through this partnership, it is our hope that making these materials available to new car owners will pique their curiosity, and they will take the time to learn about the new technology they’re driving home.”